Dude actually wrote a proper, coherent letter in Chinese… if I am the teacher he is getting full marks for sure
I live poorly here.
Working conditions are not good, welfare is lacking.
But do not worry, there are only 10 serious incidents at work everyday, and I am very careful.
We opened a small stall, business is not bad.
Although I do not know English well, I can roughly understand what the white men are saying.
Hope to make a living and succeed! I will work hard here and take care of my body.
How are you guys doing?
I miss you guys a lot and hope to meet again.
I immigrated to Vietnam in 2012. Even though government and society was much more welcoming than this case, the overall experience was… not that different!
Maybe immigration is just a pretty awful experience overall.
Surprised that the message was accurate instead of being gibberish or even asemic.
History teacher here. If this was turned in to me, rhe first thing I’d do is laugh, then have a conversation with the student. If s/he says they’d be ok with me emailing a copy of this to their parents (I’m assuming the parents speak Chinese), then I’d just give them an A for pure gall. If the kid isn’t from a Chinese-speaking family, I’d probably still give him/her kudos and then make them turn in whatever they put into Google translate to begin with. But really, this is the kind of malicious compliance I wish my students had the creativity to pull off.
It takes effort to rebel this hard. That effort should be rewarded not squashed. Eventually they’ll find something that interests them and their effort will be naturally put into improving that. Basically, don’t kill a child’s spirit.
If they don’t actually read/write Chinese, then it took more effort to do this than it would have to just write the letter in English as intended. It’s impressive.
Haha that’s cool. Why would you want to send a copy to their parents, to make sure it says what it’s supposed to say?
Exactly. I probably wouldn’t actually email it home, just look for the reaction. If they look worried, then yeah, I’d definitely send it home. I’ve had kids cuss me out in Spanish on papers before, not believing I’d actually translate it and bust them.
I can recognize about a dozen Chinese characters, so I can confidently say that this probably isn’t about soup.
I’m pretty sure that question mark on the second to last line is anachronistic. I don’t know exactly when western punctuation was incorporated into traditional Chinese script, but I’m almost certain it was well after 1870. The character at the end of that line, before the question mark, is “ma”, which, by itself, turns a statement into a question.
The handwriting and grammar was perfect. I assume it was an English homework for the student in Hong Kong or Taiwan? (The character was in traditional style which is mainly used by Hong Konger and Taiwanese.)
I think it’s more likely to be history homework for a North American school completed by an immigrant from HK/Taiwan.
Or he’s just getting really into the persona of an 1870s immigrant, who would have been using traditional characters anyway! Such attention to detail :D
